


Between the Bars

by Lirillith



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Enemy Lovers, F/M, Fights, Friendship, Non-Graphic Violence, Romance, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-04
Updated: 2006-06-07
Packaged: 2017-10-22 19:58:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirillith/pseuds/Lirillith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tifa and Rude, from their pre-game relationship to another meeting after Sephiroth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written as a series of vignettes for 30_kisses. It's also sort of a companion piece (or AU, or remix, maybe) of my earlier fic, [Long December](http://archiveofourown.org/works/241965/chapters/372478).

She'd said she never wanted to see him again, and it had looked like she might get her wish until she saw his dim reflection in the glass. He'd followed them into the elevator, and she knew immediately what that meant, a moment before she saw Cloud's face settle into angry realization.

There'd been a time when the sight of Rude felt like lights switched on, like everything clicked into color. There'd been a time when they couldn't walk to the station together without touching, when she'd pull him into alcoves or doorways and he'd kiss her breathless. Close to him again, she felt like every nerve in her body had come alert. Her heart was racing as if preparing her body to kiss him instead of to fight or run, as if she'd have a chance to do anything at all. She felt terribly aware of the inches between them, his presence at her back, and she steeled herself and turned to look at him.

He was wearing the sunglasses, of course, even though it was dark outside. She used to know how to read the rest of his face, or she'd thought she'd known. Looking at him now she saw no trace of recognition, no sign that seeing her again was having any effect on him; but then, why would it? She might have thought there'd been something real between them, but he hadn't had that problem. She felt him touch her bare arm lightly as he moved around her, until he was facing Cloud directly over the elevator's controls. He pointed up, and Cloud made a strangled noise. She heard a low rumble that placed itself in her mind abruptly as a growl - coming from Red XIII, the creature from the lab.

"Could you press 'up,' please?" Rude said, mildly, and then the doors hissed open again and another stepped in, wearing an identical suit and tie, his glossy black hair slicked back from his forehead. She thought it was the same one who'd been in the helicopter with Aerith. Finally, Rude reached in front of Cloud to push the button. Cloud caught her eye, but didn't move or reach for his sword, and the elevator purred upwards, smoother and quieter than anything they'd ever let people like her use freely.

She couldn't stop staring at Rude, willing some emotion into his face, some faint trace of reaction, but there was nothing. The elevator dinged, softly and discreetly, the doors opened, and the soldiers came in - with wire loops on sticks like they used for stray animals, with guns and blades and a few with materia they were holding up as threats - and from the corner of her eye she saw some movement. She turned her head and Cloud nodded; hoping she'd read him right, she tensed, but Rude had grabbed her wrists and got a cuff on one of them. Her head whipped around, and she saw guns pointed at them. Cloud's hands went up. She saw one of the MPs cuff his wrists behind his back, and take his sword. Two of them got loops of wire around Red XIII's neck.

"This is the martial artist?" the dark-haired Turk asked. No audible answer, but he nodded, apparently in response to some nod or other reaction from Rude. Behind her Rude got her other wrist into the cuffs, even though she tried to keep her arm stiff to make it harder for him. Someone reached past her to hand him some larger cuffs connected by a longer chain - ankle shackles, she thought. Then she heard a bang from further behind her, and jumped. Cloud's head came up, and Rude said "Tranquilizer dart." She tried to crane around him to look at Red XIII, whose face was twisted into a snarl - no wonder they'd wanted to tranquilize him.

"Get the humans out of here so gamma team will have room to work," the other Turk said, and she was hauled out of the elevator by one arm, after Cloud. She could see him being marched off. She looked back at the elevator, where a pair of MPs looked like they were pulling, trying to haul Red XIII out without getting near him. She wondered when the tranq would take effect, and when it would wear off, because they'd need to work on an escape. She wished Barret had been with them, but maybe he and Aerith could get out, at least.

Rude knelt to put the shackles on her; she wanted to bring her knee up into his face, but even she could recognize a lost cause with all these guns pointed at her. The cuff was heavy around her ankle, resting atop her bunched-up socks. She heard the other click into place. "Into bondage, huh?" she asked, her voice low.

" _No_ ," he said. "Orders. The president wants to see you, and we know what you can do barehanded."

"Yeah, because you were spying on us," she said bitterly. "I'm not going to try anything - I'm not suicidal."

"Orders," he repeated, then added "Take a step," in his normal tones, as he rose and stood aside. She tried to step forward, but her stride was pulled up short, and she stumbled and nearly fell. Humiliatingly, he caught her. "Try again."

"Fuck you," she retorted, feeling like she might cry, but she tried again, taking small steps, and this way she could walk, haltingly. He held her by the upper arm as they started walking, the MPs falling into step in front and behind them.

"You thought I was spying?" he asked, very quietly. She looked up at him, at the corner of his eye, visible behind the shades. He didn't look at her.

She faced forward, not looking at him, either, as she asked in a harsh whisper, "Are you trying to pretend you weren't? Why else were you there?"

He didn't answer. He didn't speak again until they reached the stairs leading upward, and then he only asked "Think you can climb?" She could, slowly and haltingly, getting both feet onto a step before she tried the next one, like a child, and he held her arm the whole way up.


	2. Chapter 2

"...........Tifa," he said, in answer to Reno's question, and she knew he didn't know she was there.

"Tifa?" Aerith whispered, but Tifa was still staring at his shoulder and the partial view she had of his face, obscured by the shades and the angle, and remembering the first time he kissed her.

 _When hearts like ours meet..._ She'd loved that song back then. They'd been sharing headphones, the basic kind that came with the tape deck, one against his ear, the other twisted as much as she could without breaking them and held at an angle against her own, because even though they were only about fifteen gil she could never seem to afford the kind that fit right in your ear. He'd asked about the song she'd been singing. Her shoulder had been pressed against his, and when he'd turned to look at her at the end of the song, she'd smiled and hadn't pulled away. He'd taken the headphones off, slipping them out of her hands, and kissed her.

He'd taken her out to dinner twice. He'd been drinking in the bar off and on for the better part of a year before that, but unlike most of the customers who got interested in her - seriously interested, enough to hope for a date or more - he wasn't pushy or obnoxious and he didn't get stinking drunk before he talked to her. That was what got her attention, the reason she kept talking to him, the reason she flirted. Her friends hadn't really trusted him - he wore a suit sometimes, which said Shinra to them, but not all the time. He was older than her and bigger than her so Barret tried to get her to carry pepper spray as if she didn't know how to use size against an opponent. And he was vague about his past, which didn't dispel that Shinra impression; but he'd as good as said he wasn't Shinra, and she didn't press for the real explanation.

She'd been half expecting him to come by the bar that night, but he hadn't turned up; she didn't have a cell phone, they hadn't really caught on yet or gotten affordable, and even if she had she wouldn't have expected him to call. He didn't turn up before closing time, so she just chased her friends out as she often did - she liked to have the time alone, if she didn't need help cleaning up, and this had been a quiet night - and pulled out the little portable radio and tape deck that always pissed Barret off because it was a Shinra brand. Left to herself, she started singing as she wiped down tables and lifted up chairs; when she heard a knock in a lull between songs, she jumped, yanked off her headphones and ran to unlock the door, embarrassed.

"Nice voice," he'd said, and she'd squeaked "You could _hear?_ "

"Just messing with you. I could see you were singing, that's all."

"Oh, um, yeah..."

"What was it?"

"Nothing!"

"You were just making something up?"

"No, it— leave me be."

"Sorry."

"It's okay. I just feel kind of silly."

"Everybody does it. In the car or shower or something."

"I can't picture you singing..."

"Well, _I_ don't."

"Okay, I believe you completely!" she'd chirped, and the corner of his mouth quirked up.

"Radio or tape?"

"Tape. I hate the radio stations around here."

"Let me hear it?"

"Just a second, I have to find it again..." She'd held the left side of the phones to her right ear as she wound the tape back, then handed him his half. _I went down, down, down, and the flames went higher..._ She'd looked at his tie and wondered why she didn't mind a song about burning, even if it was a love song; she'd even been freaked out about the gas stove in Barret's place, at first.

He'd been clean-shaven back then; the beard, goatee or whatever, that was new. He'd had the earrings all along, though, she remembered them, and the shades he'd only taken off after that first kiss, the shades he wore even under the plate. She'd buried the tape in the back of a drawer after Johnny and Wedge found out he was Shinra; she couldn't hear the song without thinking of him. It was lost along with everything else, everyone else, now. She could hear that new Turk, the blonde woman, and Aerith was staring at her, so she shook off the memory, took stock of the situation. Tried to ready herself for a fight.

The song was still stuck in her head when they turned in at the rented room in Gongaga that night.

 

* * *

  
She couldn't sleep. The inn was quiet, even Yuffie was quiet, and the low murmur of Cloud talking to Aerith on the PHS, quiet enough you couldn't make out words, even that was gone now. She'd dragged Cid and Yuffie to the tavern to escape it, earlier, because she couldn't ask him to shut up, could she? Everyone was in bed, and by now they all had to be asleep.

She tried to, but it kept running through her head, all the other things she wanted to say to him, all the arguments she'd never made, the questions she'd never asked. Finally she got up and pulled her clothes back on, and her gloves, and after a moment she palmed a bolt materia and Shiva, anxiously watching Yuffie in the partial light to see if she stirred, but either she slept soundly or she was faking it. She didn't really want anyone else to know what she was up to, least of all Yuffie, but if the ninja was actually living up to her training, Tifa probably couldn't fake her out.

Outside the inn, she gave her eyes a moment to adjust to the partial light. He might still be at Turtle's Paradise, and if he wasn't, she wasn't about to go looking for him. It was kind of chilly, and on top of that, this was a stupid idea.

The walk cleared her head, a little, and warmed her up a bit, but not enough that she was going to take her hands out of her jacket pockets. As she neared the bar, she saw the light out front flicker off, and she was just about to turn around when she saw a dark silhouette emerge from the door.

She kept walking. "I was hoping you'd come back," he said, when she was close enough to hear.

"I... think I had more to say," she said, uncertainly. "Or... I meant to ask you—" She broke off, but he waited. "Why didn't you tell me you were Shinra?"

"Had a pretty good idea how you'd react," he said. "You wore gloves, didn't you? Probably have materia."

"What, can you _smell_ them? It's pitch-dark!"

"Just a guess."

"Like you can blame me for being cautious. You've been spying on us all this time."

She could barely see him shake his head. "I walked into a bar. I saw you. That's the only reason I kept coming back."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"I didn't know you had Avalanche ties until after you dumped me."

"So why didn't you ever say anything?"

"I knew you hated Shinra a long time before that."

She folded her arms over her chest, but even as she did it she knew she didn't look defiant, or imperious; she'd look like a woman folding in, closing up, unsure and self-protecting. She wasn't sure about anything, now; about Cloud, about her own ability to judge people or make decisions, any of it.

Until his next question. "You really believe in all this?" he asked, and at least he sounded genuinely curious, not dismissive. "Lifestream, the Ancients, all that?"

"Yes," she said. "I always have."

He sighed. "We don't. It's not that we're evil and don't care, we just... don't believe in it." There was a long moment's silence, and then he added, "Thanks for helping us save Elena."

She smiled a little, and drew closer. "I think we did a bit more of the work. But thanks for helping us save Yuffie. And our materia." She hesitated a moment longer, then blurted "well, good night!" and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek, very quickly; he touched her shoulder but didn't try to hold onto her, and that made her feel a flash of guilt for pulling away as quickly as she had, but not enough to make her turn back.


	3. Chapter 3

He'd knocked out Cloud and Cid. She was the only one standing, and he hadn't laid a glove on her, not even when she attacked him. They were circling each other now, hands up, but he didn't seem to be focusing on his materia, speaking or gesturing or any of the other ways she'd noticed people activating theirs. She knew she ought to do something for Cloud or for Cid, get some backup so she wouldn't have to do this alone, but she was angry and confused and so she just launched herself at him instead.

They went down in a tangle of limbs - she'd misjudged, barreled into him before she could strike him and he'd grabbed her shoulders and pulled her down with him. She didn't try to get up, just shoved the hair from her eyes and demanded "Why the _hell_ won't you hit me?"

Her face was very close to his, and she could see it coming even as he raised his head. The kiss landed on the corner of her lips and she couldn't have said why she turned her head so the next one was full on her mouth, her lips parted. She didn't trust him, she didn't even like him much, not anymore, she wasn't totally sure she'd ever loved him and she was pretty sure she didn't love him now, not like she did Cloud; but she could feel his hand in her hair and the other on her back, the rough scrape of beard against her chin, his tongue against hers, and she didn't want to pull away.

Finally she drew back and grabbed him by the shoulders, shoving him down again. She wanted to slam his head against the catwalk they were on, but she didn't seem to have the leverage for it and didn't want to risk the upper hand, even though he wasn't struggling. He was warm and solid and broad under her, she could remember the way he'd looked in a tee-shirt, in nothing at all, and she could see herself reflected in his sunglasses, warped by the curve of the lenses. She hit him in the chest, without much force, and scrambled off of him, backing up a few steps. He stood, too, and she lunged forward again. The punch connected glancingly with his face, but he managed to dodge her kick.

She fell back into a defensive stance, watching as he rubbed his cheekbone. "You didn't even use it to get the advantage."

"You know why," he said.

"I know, but why even _fight?_ It makes no sense!"

"Why didn't you just fry me?" he retorted. "Or help your friends. You have materia."

"I wanted to take you down on my own," she said, and lunged forward again. This time he caught her fist.

"Still can't let you past," he said. "Just let it go this time."

"Not a chance." She tried to get her hand free, but he was holding it too tightly.

"Buy you a drink when this is all over?" he suggested.

"Is that supposed to be a bribe? Because it's a pretty pitiful bribe."

"Just an offer. No matter who comes out on top."

Maybe she'd seemed a little too forgiving in Wutai, she thought. "If we all make it. Maybe." She could feel the warmth of his palm on the bare skin of her fingers. She thought he was looking at her face, wouldn't be following her movements. She hoped. "But right now you're in my way," she added, and landed an uppercut on his chin. He staggered back and sagged against the railing, then slid down to the platform. She watched for a moment to be sure he was really out, then turned back toward her allies.

  


* * *

  
One thing about traveling the world that she'd never expected was the way it messed with your sleep cycle. It came in handy, though, because no one doubted her when right after dinner, she claimed she could barely keep her eyes open, and she had peace and quiet to retreat to her bunk - upper bunk, Yuffie seemed to feel better in the lower one - and lie awake, hands behind her head, counting the bolts in the ceiling and thinking about the wrong man.

The situation would have been weird enough if he'd been a total stranger before this; they kept running into the Turks, they knew their names and faces and fighting styles by now, and she might even have some hesitation about killing _Reno_ at this point. Possibly. But her history with Rude threw everything off kilter, and ever since the fight in Rocket Town a couple of days ago it had been hitting her at weird moments - the feeling of a hand at her waist, lips against hers, the warmth of his skin through his shirt and the roughness of his beard against her chin. She'd awakened the night before from a vague but distinctly sexual dream involving him, and she'd been mortified, and afraid she'd been making noise; but Yuffie didn't seem likely to refrain from teasing if there'd been anything to tease about, so maybe she'd been silent. That left the dream alone to disturb her balance, and remind her of other things.

Christmas Eve, a week before she'd dumped him, she'd brought him back to her apartment for the first time, the first time with anyone at all, and she could still remember how she'd felt, nervous and a little scared - subtle differences, but they were there - and happy and excited, and then there'd been that slow burn that had been building since the first time he kissed her.

She'd been surprised that she wasn't embarrassed about taking her clothes off, or his. She'd been surprised at almost everything. She'd always gotten the impression, from the trashy novels Barret made fun of and from movies and the soap operas they used to show during the day at one of her old jobs, that sex sort of just happened - that you wouldn't notice anything about your surroundings, for one thing, that you sort of lost control. It was supposed to feel good, and it did, in a way, but whatever vague thing she'd been expecting was very different from the precise kind of excitement she felt now. Enjoying his hand between her legs didn't stop her from noticing the water stain on the ceiling or thinking about what magazine article and tampon ads had to say about hymens and virginity and what Jessie had said during that one painfully awkward talk they'd had.

And then she was telling him she was okay, she was sure, and it felt like being opened up, though that wasn't quite it either, but it was closer to that than to being filled or entered or anything else she'd read to describe it before she knew what it was like. It felt strange, but all in all, strange in a good way. She smiled at him, touched his face and whispered "thank you for taking off the glasses," and he laughed, though he was breathing hard. She put her arms around him and wondered what else she should be doing, wished she'd paid attention to all those articles about blowing his mind in the magazines at hair salons and checkout counters. He kept saying her name, and kissing her, and it seemed so unnecessary when he finally said he loved her that she was surprised to realize he'd never said it before. She knew. She thought she loved him too, but she couldn't seem to say the words, and if he minded he didn't show it. Later, when she thought the whole thing had been a months-long sham, an attempt to infiltrate and spy, she'd been glad she'd never said it, and bitterly angry that he had, that she'd believed him. Unspoken in the anger was the fact she'd fallen for him, and she blamed him for it, because she couldn't let herself be angry at Wedge and Johnny for digging up the truth and telling her.

Now, she wished she'd said it, just once.


	4. Chapter 4

Even when they were fighting, a dance of blocked strikes and dodged kicks, even when they were close enough to kiss, she was out of his reach. He'd taken the chance during the fight in Rocket Town because it was the only one he'd have, even though it was a mistake. He knew even as he was kissing her that the closest he'd ever get to her again was the end of her fist. She was in love with Strife, anyone could see that; it was obvious after ten minutes of observation, let alone months. He knew it was hopeless, but still, when she came at him again and he was moving to be where her fist wasn't, he still managed to say her name.

"I know you say you're sorry," she said, as he melted away from another blow.

"I know you're in love with him," he said.

"What the hell's that got to do with anything?" she demanded, and he saw the materia flaring -but it was a healing spell for Valentine. Elena seemed to be doing a number on him.

"There are copies of the Nibelheim reports in the Turk vault, if you want them. The full reports. Strife's files, the fire, the cover-up."

"Turk vault," she said. "So we can't get to them?"

"We cleared out what we need to keep. If you want to destroy the files, a flare spell should do it, something big. Or if you want them, the combination's on my computer. The password on my computer is your name."

Her fists lowered. "You're just giving this to us? Is there some kind of trap?"

"We weren't even sure about fighting you," he pointed out, and she let her hands drop. He took a step toward her, and Reno yelled "Rude, got somewhere we need to be!"

He hesitated. "Mine's by the window," he said, and he thought of reaching across the gulf between them to touch her face, but nothing would be close enough.

* * *

  
She'd been feeling so guilty. Guilty about not telling the truth about Cloud, not even to Cloud. About the times she'd been angry at Aerith, about saying "you can't just leave him!" right before she left, guilty that that was the last thing she'd said to her, and that after Aerith left she'd let herself think that at least _she_ was the one who really cared about him for all that she kept things to herself. About sneaking out to talk to Rude in Wutai, about kissing him, about not telling Cloud or anyone at all that she'd known him, that she'd slept with him once.

And now that she was with Cloud, telling him that she'd heard him calling her in the Lifestream, telling him that as long as they were together she could keep fighting, she was feeling guilty because of Rude. Because it felt like a betrayal of him. "I don't know what I really wanted to say..." Cloud said. "I guess nothing's changed - kind of makes you want to laugh," he added, babbling, nervous.

"Words aren't the only thing that tell people what you're thinking," she said. All Rude had ever had to say was her name; she'd known from the first time he let her see his eyes that he'd loved her. She'd spent all this time telling herself it wasn't true, that it'd been a ruse, a lie, but she'd known better all along. She didn't know what could possibly tell anyone everything she was feeling, or who'd want to know all of it. She'd said they were close together now, but knowing they'd die for each other didn't mean they could make each other happy.

"We..." He stopped, but she didn't turn to look at him, didn't move at all. Her hands were hanging at her sides, empty, still covered in her gloves. It was so quiet she could hear the shift of gravel under his feet.

"Should we bother with a tent?" she finally asked, just desperate to break the silence. "It's so mild..."

"Maybe just a fire," he said, quickly, as if he were relieved the moment had passed, but as they knelt over the pile of kindling, shoulders almost touching, he reached for her hand, and when she looked up he kissed her, softly, on the lips. She studied his face as he pulled back, wishing she could just be happy, but thinking of Rude in the bar in Wutai, saying he was sorry; thinking of Aerith smiling, and that fall of water in the abandoned city; thinking of Cloud's voice calling her among all the accusing shouts and the gunfire and the scream of twisting metal in the Lifestream.

"You... still want to find her again, don't you?" she said, slowly, and she knew his answer in the softening of his face, the way his eyes brightened, the ghost of a smile.

"I do," he said. Even though it hurt, it felt like relief, a decision she wouldn't have to make, a different kind of hope growing brighter. "It's not... I don't..."

"It's okay," she said softly, her voice steady. "I miss her too." He said nothing more, and maybe he was relieved to be let out of a decision, too, she thought. She'd never know, never be able to ask him.

They ate dinner in silence, and sat together by the fire, and her head drifted toward his shoulder. He didn't move away, but he didn't put his arm around her, and she told herself it was better that way.

 


	5. Chapter 5

"Hey, um... Cait Sith? Reeve?"

"Your lucky color is yellow!" the cat declared, before emitting a sound like a phone being fumbled onto the hook, or maybe off it. "Hey, Tifa," the same voice said.

"I never asked, but... how's this work? We sort of figured it was a robot at first, and then after that we weren't exactly talking to you, and it wasn't the main thing on my mind anyway."

"Automatic routines for when I'm away," he said, in a deeper voice with the non-accent Tifa associated with Midgar and TV anchors, "but I have an A/V setup and a stripped-down headset for manual controls." He cleared his throat. "It feels strange talking into this without the silly voice. Was that all you needed to know?"

"No, I just thought of it now, I actually meant to ask something else, um... The Turks, did they make it?"

"They're in the next room. Any minute now I expect Elena to drag me back out to celebrate some more. It's just lucky I happened to be taking a break in here when you spoke to it."

"Oh, well... good! I sort of wondered." Obviously, she thought, since she'd asked. Why was she being so stupid? She wasn't even speaking to Rude, she couldn't even _see_ him, and besides, it was simple, nothing to be embarrassed about. It wasn't like she was asking him on a date or anything.

"Was there something you wanted me to say to them?"

She reached up to touch her hair, caught herself at it, and bit the side of one fingernail instead, which wasn't much better. "Um, for Rude. Tell him he owes me a drink."

* * *

Cait Sith had piped up one more time, two days later, to ask for the name of the bar she had in mind and the time to be there; no phone calls, but maybe that was an attempt, however weird, at being discreet. She felt ridiculously nervous and faintly giddy as she opened the door and walked in.

There was barely anyone in the place, and none of them were him. On her second, worried scan of the bar, she spotted a dark-haired, bearded man wearing a suit, and he smiled as she glanced at him. Realization struck her abruptly.

"Reeve?" she asked as she approached, and he inclined his head, then held out a hand for her to shake.

"Not what you were expecting, I know," he said.

"It's not that, it's— I mean, it's great to finally meet you in person—"

"He said he wasn't going to hold you to it when I gave him your message."

"Hold me to it? I was the one that brought it back up!"

He gestured to the stool next to him, and she took a seat. The bartender brought her a shot of some amber liquid and she didn't bother to ask what it was, just tossed it back and coughed as it slid through her system, spreading fire down her throat and out through her shoulders. Bourbon, she thought. It had been a long time since she'd had much of anything to drink.

"Another rough day?" he asked.

"They won't even let me _near_ the worst areas," she said, and only then wondered how he'd guessed. Though the drinking had probably helped him figure it out. They were all trying to get involved in the Midgar relief effort, but only Cid and, strangely, Barret, had official, current first-aid training. "Are you still watching us?"

"I check in once in a while. Do you want me to talk to the organizers? I know you know CPR and basic first aid, not to mention healing materia, even if you can't prove it with paperwork."

"I don't know..." she said. "I don't like the idea of having strings pulled. I used to be on the other side of that, you know?" She took a sip of the next drink. "But it's not like I'd be taking anything away from anybody. The more helpers the better."

"That was my view," he said.

"We already donated most of our healing materia," she said. "Yuffie about came unglued."

"I bet," he chuckled, and they both fell awkwardly silent. A long moment passed. Tifa glanced at his hands, the glass he wasn't even touching, and finished off her own drink. He finally cleared his throat. "Rude, uh... It's not that he didn't _want_ to see you," he said.

"What makes you think that?"

"...Good question. It's hard to tell for sure, but I would swear I'm right. He's convinced you and Cloud are together, for one thing." She laughed, briefly and mirthlessly. "And he seemed to think you just suggested this out of guilt, or some sense of obligation."

"He said _all_ that?" she asked. "Was he drunk?"

"No, I was... putting the pieces together..."

She waved away the bartender before he could pour her another. "I sure would like to think you're right," she said, and shook her head. "It's sweet of you, Ca– Reeve, but... he probably just figures it won't work." She brooded over her drink for a moment. "He's probably right. I mean, we didn't know each other that well before, and now all this, and... you need to get back, don't you?"

He hesitated. "I don't want to just run off and leave you like this," he said.

"It's just one drink."

"I don't mean that. You look sort of... lost."

"I'm probably just tired," she said, but she was appalled to find tears in her eyes. "Tired and stressed," she added. "It's... all the destruction from Meteor..." Her voice was quavering, but she couldn't seem to stop. She swiped at her eyes. "It's just... it was just on top of everything else, that's all," she said, though the last words came out on a sob. "Dammit."

"Hey, I, um..." He looked around helplessly; she wiped her eyes again with her hands as he got up, setting off down the bar. A moment later he returned bearing the kind of stiff napkin sometimes used for coasters, and she accepted it gratefully.

"Sorry," she said, after she'd wiped her eyes and blown her nose and neatly sunk the disintegrating paper wad into a wastebasket behind the bar. A bartender smiled at her aim, but his grin faltered when he saw her face. She looked back at Reeve, avoiding the mirror behind the bar and the young man who'd looked away from her.

"You want me to tell him about that?" he suggested. "Make him feel really guilty?"

She giggled, and shook her head. "Definitely not."

"If you're sure," he said. "I'm glad I was able to get you to smile without telling you to. Elena assures me that's truly obnoxious."

"Well, it is," Tifa said. "I always hated when guys would tell me to smile, like it's any business of theirs." She looked at her hands. "If he asks, um... I don't know, just point out it was my idea to show up."

"Should I tell him you were disappointed?"

"No, I... well, maybe. I don't know. If you want to, I guess. Just don't tell me."

"I'm probably too busy to find much time to tell you," he said.

"Am I keeping you? I'm sorry."

Reeve shook his head. "I did get wrangled into a promise I'd be back soon just before I left, but I'm willing to define 'soon' a little loosely."

"Not on my account! This is important, Reeve, what you're doing with the aid workers, I mean."

"Some might say you're important too," he pointed out. "Rude, for one."

She shrugged. "He didn't show up, did he?" And her voice had sounded steady too, she thought. Good. Her eyes might be puffy or red, but there was so much dust and debris in the air no one would think anything of that.

"That's...."

"He's probably just having second thoughts," she said. As far as he was concerned, after all, she was a terrorist killer, a dangerous zealot; just because the situation had changed didn't mean he'd forget that part. Or that she could. Or that she could forget Sector 7, or shackles on her ankles, or her father's blood on her skirt or Nibelheim standing intact and grotesque five years later. "Seriously. Don't try to set us up. I'm a big girl, I can take disappointment. Maybe not gracefully, but I can."

"I think you're both just too stubborn for your own good," he said. "But I'll let it go."

"Thanks," she said, as she slid down from the barstool. He put a hand on her shoulder, and up close, she noticed, even in the dim light of the bar, how tired he looked, his face thinner than she remembered when she'd seen him briefly in the Shinra office.

"Take care, okay?" he said. "I don't know if I'll have a chance to see you again, any time soon, but I'll pull those strings for you."

"I'd appreciate it. And you take care of yourself, too."

He smiled at her. "Say hi to the others for me, if you feel like mentioning where you were."

"Even Barret?"

"Even Barret," he agreed. She smiled back at him, and he leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead. He was still watching her as she walked out, and they both waved as she opened the door. She didn't look back again as she turned back towards what they called home now, walking through the dust and rubble that other people used to call home.


	6. Chapter 6

It had been summer when they defeated Sephiroth, early summer; they hadn't really been held in limbo for very long before they were admitted to the organized relief effort. It had been hot enough that the grit of Midgar stuck to their skin, that sweat rolled down their backs as they shifted rocks and carried stretchers, though some of the nights had still been cool. She'd wrapped herself her sleeping bag at night, feeling she still had the chill of the arctic crater in her bones, even though sometimes when she'd been too tired to bathe before bed she was still sticky with sweat. They were all too tired for teasing about her unaltered relationship with Cloud, too tired for thought.

There was something to be said for not thinking, she felt now. In the months since rescue efforts had been called off - she'd been too numb with weariness and with all she'd witnessed there to do more than agree hollowly with Barret that it was wrong to stop - she'd been aimless, with very little to do except think.

Things had changed in just the way they'd always wanted. Mako wells and plants all over the world had erupted, been left unusable; some places found replacements sooner than others. Corel should be doing well now, she thought. She'd spoken to Reeve one last time in the fall, and he'd talked at length about air pollution from coal and oil, and she'd promised to speak to Barret if she could. She'd tried, but he didn't want to hear what she was saying. It had been good to see Marlene again, but she headed for Gongaga after that. They'd been welcoming enough, but she was restless and lonely, or something like lonely. It felt like the homesickness she'd had in the first months in Midgar, but she didn't see how it could be homesickness - what was _home_ , anymore?

She'd gone on to Cosmo Canyon; Red was there, at least, and so happy to see her that he didn't take off for a week, when he'd been planning to leave the next day. He didn't say why he was going, but the consensus in town was that he wanted to find another of his race. "A female, ideally," one of them said, at a dinner at Hargo's place, and the way the others around the table laughed, she figured it was a joke about his adolescence and not just a wish for a dying race to revive.

She got a job in the pub, a hole in the cliff wall to call her own, and all the serene quiet she could possibly want. And plenty of time to think, while she was cooking in the pub or in the lulls between rushes of customers, during the nighttime walk back to her place, free of all the noise she'd taken for granted in Midgar, and at night when she couldn't get to sleep. Her thoughts were on Cloud less than she'd have expected, though more than she wanted, and on Rude much more.

He didn't want her back. She was sure of that now, and time had taken some of the initial sting out of it, but it still hurt, because if she hadn't dumped him - "kicked him to the curb," Barret had said at the time, he'd been protective of her, suspicious all along of an older guy who wouldn't talk about himself much - it might have been different. Might have. He'd still have had to arrest her, after all. She was just fooling herself, she kept thinking, in hopes the repetition could convince her; there'd never been a chance for them.

She tried to shove the thoughts away, focus on a daily life that was hardly empty or unhappy, but she was no longer too tired to think when she was alone. She spent time with her friends in Cosmo, she adopted their customs, their homespun clothes and vegetarian diet and solar calendar, and ignored her cell phone; she was surprised when it rang, for the first time in months, and couldn't find it in time to answer it. When she called Barret back, he seemed bemused by her description of her new life, though happy for her. This time he talked about solar power and she wished she could hug him; instead she talked about the wind power they used. "We only need a few hours a day," she said, and he laughed and said "That ain't gonna fly with our clients." She couldn't get over the idea that Barret had clients.

The seasons looked different here, in the desert mountains. She couldn't help remembering the bright foliage of autumn in Nibelheim, and missing it more than she had since her first fall in Midgar, but she was more aware of the changing seasons now than she had been when the school calendar was the only one that mattered. Winter came early, though, and decisively, and they bundled up and built fires and she wondered if Rude was someplace warm, like he said he'd always wanted, or if he'd gone back to Junon.

And then he walked into her bar on Long Night, the turn of the year in Cosmo, when candles and torches lit from the bonfires were the only lights they had and she was the only one on duty. All of the others were still around the Cosmo Candle, lingering after the ceremony, but she'd excused herself for no reason she could identify - the cold and closeness of other December holidays she still remembered, and the way the smoke from the bonfire was making her eyes sting.

She offered him a free drink and immediately claimed it was just for the holiday. He took off his shades and kept looking at her when he thought she couldn't see, and she bit her tongue each time she thought of asking him why he'd sent Reeve to the bar. He said he was sorry but he didn't say what part he was sorry for, and she told him to sit with her anyway. They talked about Cloud, about Reeve, the weather and Shinra, circling around the things she wanted to say - the things she was beginning to think he wanted to say, too.

Until she couldn't circle them much longer. "It could have been different, you know. If it weren't for Shinra." He didn't say anything. "I wish it had been," she added, softly.

He hesitated, and she heard him take a deep breath. "Shinra's gone," he said.

She gathered her nerve to look in his face, though she couldn't keep her eyes on his for long. "I know," she said, and then she kissed him, softly and quickly, but as she pulled away he touched her cheek and kissed her again. Her lips parted this time, and she was turning towards him on the bench, arms going around his neck. She felt his hand at her waist, his teeth at her lip, and she climbed onto his lap to kiss him again.

She couldn't have said how long it was before she pulled back and whispered that she should close up. He watched her as she began snuffing candles, wiping down a bar she'd already wiped. He fumbled for his sunglasses again, stuck them in the pocket of his worn, travel-stained suit, and stood as if to go. "You, um, you could come back to my place if you're willing to wait," she said, all in a rush, her face warm, and he said "I can wait."

* * *

 

Later, in bed, with his arms wrapped around her, she drowsily shaped the rumble of his voice in his chest into a question. "Hmm?"

"You forgive me?"

She roused herself enough to think about it. "I think so," she said. "I was furious, you know that. I have been for a long time, but I'm in love with you... you know what it's like, don't you?"

"I know exactly what that's like," he said.

"Hey," she said. "You know... that drink you were going to buy me..."

"I still owe you," he said. "Sending Reeve was..."

"It was chickenshit," she said, propping herself up on her elbow. "I figured you were letting me know you were through with me, no matter what he was saying. If that wasn't it, I can't figure out what you were thinking. What did you think I was going to do to you?"

"I thought you felt like you had to show up," he said. "Didn't want to get you back out of guilt."

"Why would I feel guilty? You were the one that lied to me. Never mind all the Shinra stuff and the reactor bombings, all of that - if it's just about the two of us—"

"Didn't say it made sense."

She flopped back onto the bed. "You're an idiot."

He took her hand, tentatively. "I know." A moment's hesitation. "I'm sorry. I can leave, if you want."

"No," she said, rolling back over onto her side, so she could rest her head against his chest again. "Stay."

She felt him run his fingers through her hair, and she could hear his heartbeat as well as his voice as he said "I will."


End file.
